The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, is a comic novel by Henry Fielding. The baby Tom is discovered abondoned on the property of a kind and wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy. Allworthy takes him in and raises him. Tom grows up into a an energetic, passionate and handsome young man, and falls in love with his neighbour's daughter, Sophia Western. As Tom is a bastard, however, their romance is strongly discouraged by Sophia's father and Allworthy.

Amelia is another Fielding novel, his last, published in 1751. It describes the hardships suffered by a young couple newly married, and is believed to draw on Fielding's own life.

This 1800 'pin-up' of the character Sophia is captioned "Adorned with all the charms in which Nature can array her, bedecked with beauty, youth, sprightliness, innocence, modesty and tenderness, breathing sweetness from her rosy lips and darting brightness from her sparkling eyes, the lovely Sophia comes!"